You’ve contracted to install underground utilities. Once the work begins, you discover soils with inadequate bearing capacity, large amounts of unanticipated rock, groundwater at levels higher than anticipated, buried debris, or hazardous wastes. None of these conditions were expected. As a result, the cost you promised to the owner to install the utilities is no longer feasible. Who bears this risk? A “differing site condition” (also known as a “changed condition”), which is abbreviated in this article as a “DSC,” is an unknown and hidden, concealed, or latent physical condition encountered at a site that differs materially from the reasonably… Read more
Tag: American Demolition v. Hapeville
AIA Additions and Deletions Report May Be More Important Than You Think
The parol evidence rule is a substantive common-law rule that prevents a party to an integrated (complete) written contract from presenting extrinsic evidence that contradicts or adds to the written terms of the contract unless one of a handful of narrow exceptions applies. The rule means that one cannot use evidence of prior negotiations to alter the terms of an integrated (complete) written contract. The American Institute of Architect’s (“AIA”) proprietary software requires changes in the form agreement to be shown as redlined or strikethrough text, or as an Additions and Deletions Report appended to the end of the document. For… Read more